NC primary: What's at stake, what to bring, who's on the ballot

Tuesday

RALEIGH — North Carolina legislators decided nearly three years ago to move the presidential primaries up the states' pecking order from May to wield more influence in choosing party nominees.

But six months ago they also agreed to move all other primary races up to Tuesday. That was expected to save $9.5 million for holding an extra election and to encourage higher turnout for other contests. Redistricting rulings last month, however, still will mean separate congressional elections in June, losing the planned savings.

Here's a look at the primary campaign, what election-day voters should expect Tuesday, and the key non-presidential races:

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WHAT'S AT STAKE?

North Carolina Democrats will distribute to party presidential candidates 107 convention delegates and state Republicans will allocate 72 delegates based on the primary results. Both state parties are allocating their delegates proportionally, based on results by congressional districts or statewide. Libertarians also hold a presidential primary, although delegates aren't apportioned based on the results.

Down the ballot there are party nomination races for governor, U.S. Senate, Council of State positions, the legislature, trial-level judgeships and county commissioners. In races where only one party fielded candidates, Tuesday's winners also win in November, barring late independent bids.

All voters also are asked to decide whether to authorize the state to issue $2 billion in bonds for higher education and government building projects.

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INTERESTING RACES

Republican Gov. Pat McCrory and Democratic Attorney General Roy Cooper are considered heavy favorites in their gubernatorial primaries. Challengers Robert Brawley (Republican) and Ken Spaulding (Democrats) hope anti-establishment backlash will help them. The same holds true for Republican Greg Brannon, the top rival to GOP U.S. Sen. Richard Burr. Deborah Ross led the fundraising and endorsement contest ahead of the Democratic Senate primary.

In Council of State races, Democrats Linda Coleman and Holly Jones ran neck-and-neck with fundraising in the lieutenant governor's primary. Republicans Buck Newton and Jim O'Neill are vying for the nomination for attorney general.

In the General Assembly, a handful of Republican incumbents face tough challenges, particularly in the House, including political friends and enemies of House Speaker Tim Moore, R-Cleveland. State Sen. David Curtis, R-Lincoln, may be the most vulnerable incumbent in his chamber, challenged by former Sen. Chris Carney.

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TURNED-UP TURNOUT

Competitive presidential candidates certainly contributed to record in-person early voting for a primary, even though the early-voting period is now 10 days, down from 17 previously.

The State Board of Elections says 684,500 people voted at early-voting sites statewide before they closed Saturday afternoon, or 10.5 percent of the state's 6.5 million registered voters. Almost 26,000 more people had returned mail-in absentee ballots as of early Monday.

In the May 2012 primary, the early in-person vote total was 492,500, or 7.8 percent of registered voters.

Will the high early-voting turnout translate into high overall turnout? The state's modern-day record for a primary was in May 2008, when 37 percent of the 5.8 million voters cast ballots. That featured a Democratic primary between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

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HOW'S VOTER ID GOING?

While litigation challenging the state's voter identification requirement is pending, there haven't been reports of pocketed or widespread problems associated with the mandate, which took effect with early voting March 3 and continues Tuesday.

The latest totals show 865 provisional ballots were cast during early voting by registered voters who said they didn't have a qualifying photo ID — or 0.1 percent of all ballots cast so far.

Voters need to bring one of six qualifying IDs, or they should be prepared to fill out a "reasonable impediment" form explaining why they couldn't obtain an ID and provide other identifying information. Doing so usually means the provisional ballot will be counted.

Provisional ballots from people who say they forgot their ID won't count unless they present an acceptable ID at the county elections office by early next week. More information is available at http://voterid.nc.gov/

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ANYTHING ELSE TO KNOW?

Polls are open Tuesday for 2,709 precincts statewide from 6:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Traditional absentee ballots must be turned in by Tuesday to one's county election office or must be postmarked by Tuesday on order to count. In most cases, those mailed ballots must be received by later in the week.

There are also no primary runoffs this year, so the candidate with the most votes win, no matter the percentage received.

Because of a pending court case, voters who mistakenly show up at the wrong precinct in their county Tuesday will still have their choices count for races not specific to their home precinct. A 2013 law barred out-of-precinct voting on election day.

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